


Goodridge v. Department of Public Health

by Brenda



Category: Good Will Hunting (1997)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Marriage Proposal, POV Will, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21838039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda/pseuds/Brenda
Summary: He'd spent the entire seven hour flight from San Jose to Boston rehearsing what he'd wanted to say. Had gone over every word, repeating it in his head, until he'd had it memorized. Because this was fucking important and he couldn't afford to screw this up.Which was precisely why Will looked right up into those stupidly soulful brown eyes, psyched himself up to start his speech, and said: "I think we should get married."Chuckie froze in place.  "I'm sorry, I thought you just fucking told me you wanted to get married."(Takes place in May of 2004, when same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts.)
Relationships: Will Hunting/Chuckie Sullivan
Comments: 31
Kudos: 163
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Goodridge v. Department of Public Health

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arysteia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Arysteia!

"What the fuck're you doing here?"

"Nice to see you too, man," Will replied, shifting from foot to foot as he balanced his backpack on one shoulder. Christ, Chuckie was a sight for sore eyes. "You gonna let me in or just stare at me?"

Chuckie held the front door open, and waved Will into the apartment. "By all means. Mi casa, su casa."

Will threw his backpack on the sofa and looked around the immaculate living room in a benign state of amusement. No shoes on the floor, no clothes strewn everywhere, Chuckie even had pillows on the sofa and coasters on the coffee table. "How are you this fucking neat?" he asked. "You were such a fucking slob growing up."

"Yeah, and then I moved out on my own and didn't have anyone to clean up after me." Chuckie crossed his arms, and frowned at Will. "So why're you in town? I didn't even know you were flying in."

"Sorta defeats the purpose of surprising your best friend if you tell him you're coming."

"You didn't get fired from your fancy think tank at Stanford, did you?" Chuckie asked, suspiciously. "Because if you're even thinking about moving back to Boston, I'll fucking kill you."

"What, no, I didn't get fired, Jesus Christ." Will sank to the sofa. "Why do you always assume the worst?"

"I dunno, maybe because the last time you just showed up in Boston, out of the blue, it was to tell me you and Skylar were getting divorced." Chuckie leaned against the far wall and gave Will a hard stare. "So just tell me what's going on already."

"Can't we just talk about the fact that I flew out here to see you, and maybe you could pretend to be slightly happy about it?"

Chuckie rolled his eyes. "Alright, I suppose I might've missed you," he admitted, grudgingly. "So now will you tell me why the fuck you're really here?"

Will gave the room another pass before looking at Chuckie. He should have known better than to think he could pull one over on the person who knew him better than anyone else, but it wasn't like he could just _tell_ Chuckie why he was here without smoothing the way. So, he'd spent the entire seven hour flight from San Jose to Boston rehearsing what he'd wanted to say. Had gone over every word, repeating it in his head, until he'd had it memorized. Because this was fucking important and he couldn't afford to screw this up.

Which was precisely why he looked right up into those stupidly soulful brown eyes, psyched himself up to start his speech, and said: "I think we should get married."

Chuckie froze in place. "I'm sorry, I thought you just fucking told me you wanted to get married."

 _Fuck_ , not remotely how he'd rehearsed it. Not even close. Christ, how was it he always did this – he could smooth talk his way out of any situation on the planet, but when it came to shit that mattered, he fucking forgot the English language. 

Oh well, he thought, nothing to do now except brazen it out. "Oh good, your hearing still works," Will said, and leaned back against the cushions with a nonchalance he didn't remotely feel. "So, you in?"

Chuckie's brows drew together, thunderous, and not remotely the look of a man overcome with joy. "Is this your idea of a joke?"

Will flicked at the Big Papi bobblehead on the end table, just to have something to focus on that wasn't Chuckie and his frown. "Gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts now."

"Yeah, I fucking read about it," Chuckie said, still looking at Will like Will had lost his mind. "What's that got to do with us?"

Will shook his head in frustration. This was going all sideways, and he'd barely been here ten minutes. "Well, we're both guys, in case you forgot."

Chuckie just glowered at him like he was a dumbass. (And maybe he was – something had to explain why he was doing this.) "Of course I didn't fucking forget, stop deflecting and tell me what this is about."

Will lifted a hand in supplication, and dropped it almost immediately. Clearly time for a different tactic. "Look, if anything happened to you, who's the first person out here who would think to call me to let me know?"

"I dunno, my mom?" Chuckie ventured, with a shrug. "Maybe Billy? Definitely not Morgan."

"Definitely not," Will agreed, because some truths were fucking universal, and Morgan being useless in a crisis was one of those truths. "Okay, and your mom might think to call me, she might not."

"I hope she'd call you," Chuckie interjected, "I mean, if she knows what's good for her."

"If she thought about it, sure," Will said. "But say I dropped dead of a fucking heart attack, who would call you?"

"Don't even joke about that, man." Chuck pointed at the coffee table. "Go on, knock on it."

"Fucking Irish prick," Will lamented, but did as asked, because Chuckie wouldn't let it go otherwise. "Happy now?"

If anything, Chuckie's frown grew even more fierce. "No, I'm not fucking happy, you just casually fly the fuck across the country to drop some bombshell about how me and you need to get gay married without any fucking warning –"

"Pretty sure it's all the same kinda married now," Will said, then held up his hands when Chuckie just rolled his eyes. "Alright, seriously serious here, _if_ anything happened to me, knock on wood, who would call you to let you know?"

Chuckie's shoulders lifted in a shrug. "I dunno, Skylar?"

"We've been divorced for two years," Will reminded him.

"Yeah, and she's still the only person who would call me."

Okay, this line of reasoning was clearly not working, but he was trying to make a fucking point, so he was going to stick with it if it killed them both. "Right, okay, so say she calls you, and says 'hey, Will's been in an accident, he's in the hospital, he needs surgery, but he can't consent'. Who gives the consent?"

Chuckie gestured at himself. "Uh, me. We're listed as each other's next of kin."

"Except we're not related," Will pointed out, because _now_ they were finally getting somewhere. "But if we got married, then we could make sure each other's wishes were being met."

"So...you're serious," Chuckie said, drawing out each word. "You flew all the way back to Massachusetts so we could get _married_ so if something happens to me, you get a legal say?"

"I mean, yeah, that's part of it," Will replied. No way Chuckie was ready to hear the other part, not yet. "So, are you in or out?"

"Will, we're _not_ gay," Chuckie said, like maybe Will was slow or something.

"You think I don't fucking know that?" Will huffed, annoyed. Christ, they were never getting to the courthouse at this rate. "I don't think either of us has been faking how much we love eating pussy for the past fifteen years."

"You didn't pop your cherry until you were 17, dickhead, stop with that early bloomer shit, it's embarrassing." 

Will rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, at least I didn't nut as soon as I got my dick inside her."

"You swore on Ted Williams' _life_ to never bring that up again." Chuckie jabbed a finger in Will's direction. "And all I meant was I think we gotta be gay to get gay married."

Christ, Will was trying to marry a fucking moron. "I don't think they're gonna make us give each other a hummer before they issue us a marriage license. Besides," he added, "bisexual people do exist."

Chuckie pushed himself off the wall and started pacing across the room, punctuating the air with angry jabs. "Alright, so how exactly is this gonna work?" 

"How's what gonna work?" Will asked, mystified.

"Us." Chuckie did the whole pointing back and forth between them thing. "Being married."

"What do you mean?"

Chuckie rolled his eyes, but stopped the pacing, which was nice. Will was starting to get a little dizzy. "You're not moving back to Boston." It wasn't a question.

"You're right, I'm not," Will gently replied, knowing how important it was to both of them that Will had gotten out of Southie. "I was kinda hoping you'd come out to Palo Alto with me."

"The fuck would I do out there?" Chuckie asked, raking a hand through his hair.

Will shrugged. "I dunno, same fucking thing you do in Boston – we got construction crews and bars, you can build houses and drink to your heart's content, same as here, but with a beach nearby and better weather."

"They even serve decent beer in GranolaLand?" Chuckie asked, like he was seriously considering it. Which, Will was trying really hard not to get his hopes up, but he thought it was a good sign. "They don't make it out of tofu or wheatgrass or some bullshit like that?"

Will chuckled, amused. "You've been out to fucking visit me, you fucking retard –"

"I don't think we're allowed to say that word anymore –"

"Whatever, you know there's decent beer."

"Alright, fine, there's decent beer," Chuckie conceded. "You'd really expect us to live together?"

"Yeah, I mean, it'd be weird otherwise," Will replied. "Why would I want to be married and live across the fucking country from each other, what sort of sense does that make."

"You still haven't given me a reason _why_ we should do it," Chuckie said, calmly. "And don't give me this bullshit about medical reasons or any of that, alright."

Will rubbed his hands across his thighs to disguise the way they were shaking. Moment of truth, he thought. Christ, he should have asked for a drink first, just to calm his nerves. "Alright, so the thing is, I mean, well" – Jesus, why was this so goddamn hard – "okay, look, it's like this. I can't bullshit you – I've never been able to bullshit you – and I hate it."

Chuckie reared back like he'd been punched. "Oh that's just fucking great, you fly all the way out here just to shit on me –"

"No, that's not – fuck, I'm not shitting on you, I just hate that I can't bullshit you," Will growled, exasperated with himself and Chuckie and the whole fucking situation. Why couldn't Chuckie just read his goddamn mind in this like he could in everything else? "You see right through me, man, you always have."

Chuckie did not look remotely like the proverbial light bulb had gone off in his brain. "Yeah, I still don't understand what you're saying, sorry."

He was fucking this whole thing all up, but Chuckie hadn't thrown him out on his ass yet, so he still had a shot. But he had to get his shit together. "Okay," Will said, shoring up the frayed ends of his courage, "Sean, he told me something once a long time ago, about love – I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but he said I'd know it when I was able to look at someone and be totally vulnerable – that there'd be someone out there who could flatten me with a look. And, I really thought I'd found that with Skylar, but there was always something missing between us. And that's not missing with you."

Chuckie visibly swallowed, but he didn't move otherwise. "What are you fucking saying, Will?"

"I'm saying you're that person for me," Will confessed, in a voice that was just above a whisper. "I didn't have it with Skylar because I already had it with you – Chuckie, I –" He stopped, and let out another slow, shaking breath. "I guess what I'm trying to tell you is I love you. Not as a brother or a friend or fucking family, but as my person, y'know."

All in all, he thought he did okay. Even though Chuckie was still looking at him like he was speaking Greek. Which, maybe wasn't so great.

"Are you gonna say anything?" Will asked, when Chuckie just continued to stare at him in silence.

"Your person, huh?" Chuckie finally commented, shaking his head. "All those smarts and that's the best you can do?"

Will frowned. "What, you want me to write you a fucking sonnet or something?" he asked. He was no Shakespeare, by any stretch, but he could probably come up with something, if that's what Chuckie wanted.

"Maybe?" Chuckie offered, then ruined the effect by bursting out laughing.

"Fucking dick," Will replied, groaning at how easily Chuckie had wound him up. Whoever it was that said love was blind had it dead fucking on, because there was no other way to explain why Will was so stupid over this asshole. "Would you stop busting my balls and say it back already."

"C'mere." Chuckie pulled Will up off the sofa and into his arms, wrapping them tight around Will's waist. "You fucking _know_ I love you too," Chuckie said, like it was somehow the easiest thing in the world – like the confession was no big deal, when it was the _biggest_ fucking deal in all of history. "Been in love with your skinny ass since I was ten years old."

Will could feel his eyes prickling, and let out a relieved breath before leaning in to press his lips against Chuckie's. Chuckie froze for a terrifying second, but then he responded, kissing Will back like he'd been waiting for the opportunity all his life. They took their time, Chuckie's dry lips conforming to Will's every movement, as the kiss shifted from soft and sweet to hard and drugging and back again. Chuckie buried his hands in Will's hair, his stubbled jaw scraped over Will's own, and Will was pretty sure this was maybe the best moment of his life.

Chuckie's lips were bruised and swollen and his eyes were glazed over when Will finally pulled back. It was a great look on him. "So," he said, with a wide, shit-eating grin, so happy he was ready to burst with it, "what do you say?"

Chuckie cupped Will's jaw with gentle fingers. "You fucking know my answer already."

Will stroked Chuckie's chin, noticing the frankly adorable way that Chuckie nuzzled into the light touch. "Maybe I need you to actually say it out loud."

Chuckie licked his lower lip and gave Will a surprisingly shy smile. "Maybe you need to properly ask me."

"Like, on bended knee?"

Chuckie laughed, the sound bright and amused and just so fucking _Chuckie_. "I don't think we need to get carried away here."

Will brushed another quick kiss across full, parted lips. He was already envisioning the next fifty years of Chuckie giving him shit at every opportunity – and fuck, he couldn't wait. "Chuckie Sullivan, would you fucking marry me already?"

"Terrible," Chuckie grumbled, although the effect was, admittedly, somewhat lost, given how hard he was still smiling. "Yes, I'll fucking marry you already."

"Good," Will said, and kissed him again to seal the deal.

***

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Steph](http://www.stephrc79.tumblr.com) for the last-minute beta! 
> 
> You can now find me on [Tumblr](http://www.brendaonao3.tumblr.com). :)


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